Leete, Frederick Deland, 1866-1958

Frances Elizabeth Caroline Willard (1839 – 1898) was an educator and social reformer dedicated to the causes of temperance and women’s suffrage. Willard graduated from North Western Female College in Evanston, Illinois, the valedictorian of the class of 1859. The following year, at the age of 21, she joined the Methodist Episcopal Church.

After serving as president of the Evanston College for Ladies from 1871 to 1873 and Dean of Women at Northwestern University in 1874, Willard was elected president of the Chicago branch of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). She worked for evangelist Dwight L. Moody in 1877 organizing women’s meetings prior to becoming president of the Illinois WCTU in 1878. From 1879 until her death in 1898, she served as president of the national WCTU. In 1883 she founded the World Woman’s Christian Temperance Union.

Frances Willard traveled and lectured widely. Her interest in politics led to the organization of the National Council of Women, the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, and the Prohibition Party.

To honor the memory of Frances Willard, the Methodist Episcopal Church General Conference of 1936 adopted a resolution presented by Mamie Colvin describing Willard as “that able champion of the rights of women and the cause of total abstinence, that fearless and mighty enemy of the American liquor trade” and urging all Methodists to study “the life and work of Frances E. Willard, and the contribution she made to the moral progress of America and the world.”

Frederick DeLand Leete (1866-1958) was a Methodist bishop and collector of Methodistica. The items in this collection were originally part of his Methodist Historical Library.

From the guide to the F. D. Leete collection on Frances E. Willard BridArch 303. 54., Circa 1860 to circa 1920, 1869-1895, (Bridwell Library, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University)

The Ninde (Nind) family contributed four generations of ministers and missionaries to the Protestant Episcopal and Methodist Episcopal churches during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. William Ninde (1778-1822) was ordained a Deacon in Baltimore, Maryland in 1808 and served as rector of several Protestant Episcopal churches near Annapolis. He married Mary Cole (1787-1839) in 1808, and the couple had six children. The Reverend William Ninde died of typhus fever in 1822 and was buried at St. Stephen’s Church in Cecil County, Maryland.

William and Mary Cole Ninde’s son, William Ward Ninde, was born in 1809 in Wayne County, New York. He began preaching at 17, and although he died in 1845 at 36 years of age, he was well-known as a minister. During his brief career he worked in the Genessee, Oneida, and Black River conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

William Xavier Ninde (1832-1901) was born in Cortland, New York to William Ward and Mary Moore Ninde (1809-1876). He attended Wesleyan University in Connecticut, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1855. He later was awarded a Doctor of Divinity degree from his alma mater in 1874 and a Doctor of Laws degree from Northwestern University in 1892. Ninde taught briefly at Rome Academy in New York, was ordained a Methodist minister in 1856, and served charges in New York, Ohio, and Michigan.

Reverend William X. Ninde taught practical theology at Garrett Biblical Institute in Evanston, Illinois from 1873 to 1876 and also served as the school’s president from 1879 until 1884, when he was elected Bishop. As bishop, Ninde traveled widely and was a member of the 1881 and 1891 pan-Methodist ecumenical conferences.

William Xavier Ninde married Elizabeth S. Falley (d. 1903) in 1857. Their four children, Mary Louise (1858-1947), Edward S. (1866-1935), George F. (1876-1929), and Frederick W. (b. 1878), continued the family tradition of service in the Methodist Episcopal Church. Mary Ninde devoted much of her life to missionary work. She married Frank D. Gamewell in 1909 and the couple worked as missionaries in China for many years thereafter. Mary Ninde Gamewell wrote a biography of her father, William Xavier Ninde: a Memorial (1902), and three books on her experiences as a missionary: Gateway to China (1916), New Life Currents in China (1919), and Ming-Kwong: City of the Morning Light (1924). Frank D. Gamewell (1857-1950), a civil engineer and educator, was active in Methodist mission work from 1881 to 1930 serving as professor, principal, and acting president of Peking University; superintendent of education for the Methodist Church in all of China; executive of the China Educational Association; and associate secretary of the Methodist Episcopal Church Board of Missions.

Edward S. Ninde, born in Cincinnati in 1866, attended Wesleyan University and later Garrett Biblical Institute. Edward was ordained to the ministry in 1891 and served churches in Michigan, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania. In addition to his ministerial work, he also was the author of The Story of the American Hymn (1921), George Whitefield: Prophet-Preacher (1924), and Nineteen Centuries of Christian Song (1938). Reverend Edward S. Ninde died in 1935. George Falley Ninde was born in 1876 in Evanston, Illinois. He attended the University of Michigan and Garrett Biblical Institute and traveled in both Europe and Asia. He died in 1929. His brother, Frederick W. Ninde, was born in 1878 in Detroit. He earned an M.D. from Michigan and received a graduate degree in psychology and sociology at Pennsylvania.

William X. Ninde’s brother Henry Summerfield Ninde (1835-1931) was a civil engineer, author, and active Methodist layman. He served as general secretary of the Young Men’s Christian Association in 1872 and later worked on the international committee of the YMCA. He married Eliza Lawton (1838-1931) in 1860 and the couple had six children.

Sources:

Brashares, Charles W. Ninde, William Xavier. Encyclopedia of World Methodism . Nashville: Methodist Publishing House, 1974.

Cahiwat, Romina and Dale Patterson. Guide to the William Xavier Ninde Papers. General Commission on Archives and History, the United Methodist Church: http://archives.gcah.org/eadweb/gcah2405.htm. Accessed July 6, 2011.

Edward Summerfield Ninde. F.D. Leete collection on William Xavier Ninde family, Bridwell Library, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University.

Frank D. Gamewell. Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Christianity: http://www.bdcconline.net/en/stories/g/gamewell-francis-dunlap.php. Accessed July 6, 2011.

George Falley Ninde. F.D. Leete collection on William Xavier Ninde family, Bridwell Library, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University.

The Late Bishop Ninde. Christian Herald, January 16, 1901. F.D. Leete collection on William Xavier Ninde family, Bridwell Library, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University.

The Late Bishop Ninde: The Life Story. F.D. Leete collection on William Xavier Ninde family, Bridwell Library, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University.

Mary Ninde Gamewell: A Continued Story. F.D. Leete collection on William Xavier Ninde family, Bridwell Library, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University.

Nynde-Nind-Ninde: The Ancestral Tree. F.D. Leete collection on William Xavier Ninde family, Bridwell Library, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University.

From the guide to the F. D. Leete collection on William Xavier Ninde family BridArch 301. 17., 1808-1955, 1855-1925, (Bridwell Library, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University)

Frederick DeLand Leete was born at Avon, New York on October 1, 1866. He studied at Syracuse University, earning A.B. (1889) and A.M. (1891) degrees. On July 28, 1891, Leete married Jeanette Fuller. They had three children.

Rev. Leete joined the New York Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1888 and served congregations in New York state until 1906, when he was appointed Pastor of the Central Methodist Church in Detroit, Michigan. The General Conference of 1912 elected Leete bishop. Before retiring, Bishop Leete served two four-year terms in three different locations: the Atlanta area (1912-1920), the Indianapolis area (1920-1928), and the Omaha area (1928-1936).

With insights gained from episcopacies in both northern and southern states, Bishop Frederick D. Leete advanced the cause of Methodist Church union. He also served as a member of the Ecumenical Methodist Conferences of 1911, 1921, and 1931 and as President of the Ecumenical Council of the Americas and Orient, 1931-1944.

Leete wrote the following books: Every-day Evangelism (1909); Christian Brotherhoods (1912); The Church in the City (1915); Palestine: Land of the Light (1917); Christianity in Science (1928); Palestine: its Scenery, Peoples and History (1933); Pictures of Jesus (1935); Skyward: A Book of Horizons (1936); New Testament Windows (1939); The Deland Family in America: a Biographical Genealogy (1943); and Methodist Bishops (1948). Twenty-one of his sermons, public addresses, essays and book reviews were also published between 1901 and 1947. In 1936 Southern Methodist University granted Bishop Leete an honorary Doctor of Laws degree.

Frederick D. Leete was a member of the American Historical Association. As a church historian, he gathered a significant quantity of manuscript and published materials by and about Methodist bishops and items concerning other topics in Methodist history. Leete donated his Methodist Historical Library to Bridwell Library in 1956. After the bishop’s death in 1958, Librarian Kate Warnick continued adding materials to the Leete collections in his honor until her retirement in 1979.

Sources:

Earl, Jesse E. "Frederick D. Leete." In Encyclopedia of World Methodism, vol. 2 . Nashville: United Methodist Publishing House, 1974.

Warnick, Kate. "The Romance of Methodism: The Methodist Historical Library, Inc." Perkins School of Theology Journal (Fall 1945): 17-21.

From the guide to the F. D. Leete collection on Methodist Bishops BridArch 301. 09A., 1830-1977, 1870-1956, (Bridwell Library, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University)